By Will Dunham WASHINGTON, June 6 (Reuters) - The lawyer infected with a dangerous form of tuberculosis who sparked an international hunt when he eluded health authorities insisted on Wednesday that he had never been told he posed a risk to others. But federal health officials said they had clearly told the man, 31-year-old Andrew Speaker, he had a dangerous form of tuberculosis and asked him not to travel.Speaker touched off an international health alert last month when, as he and his new bride sought to return from their honeymoon, they flew around Europe and to Canada before driving across the border to the United States. Homeland Security officials said on Wednesday that a single U.S. border agent erred in letting Speaker cross, even though his passport sparked a computer alert. Speaker spoke by video link to a House of Representatives hearing from a Denver specialist hospital where he is being treated for extensively drug resistant tuberculosis, or XDR TB. "I was repeatedly told that I was not contagious," he told Wednesday's hearing. He said Centers for Disease Control and Prevention officials knew he was planning to travel to Italy and Greece to get married and honeymoon, and they knew he had a form of TB that was resistant to several drugs. "They had my culture and they were doing the resistance testing on it. They knew that I was (multi-drug resistant) on the 10th (of May). And they knew that I was traveling," Speaker said. INSTRUCTIONS CDC Director Dr. Julie Gerberding said her agency contacted Speaker in Rome and gave him clear instructions. "On both May 22nd and 23rd, HHS/CDC spoke with the patient in Rome, Italy, and informed him of his XDR TB diagnosis; explained the severity of the disease; instructed him to terminate all travel and to cease use of commercial air carriers; and initiated conversations about the need for isolation, treatment and travel alternatives," Gerberding said in written testimony. "Despite assurances from the patient that he would not travel, it was discovered, on May 24th, that the patient had checked out of his hotel." At a separate hearing in the House of Representatives Homeland Security committee, Ralph Basham of the Department of Homeland Security said one agent mistakenly decided to let Speaker enter the country. "He chose to ignore it. His instructions were very clear," Basham said. Speaker has admitted he flew to Canada and drove across the border to elude a no-fly order. He and his wife were admitted to the United States at an upstate New York border crossing. Tuberculosis infects about a third of the world's population and kills 1.6 million a year. Most cases are latent, and even people with active disease can show no symptoms of illness, such as Speaker. But any person with active TB can spread the bacteria to others. While Speaker is not considered highly contagious, health experts agree it is possible for him to infect others.
